For over 45 years Bill Lunney has held leadership roles in land conservation across Wisconsin and we’ve all benefited from the impact of his extraordinary dedication. We are thrilled that he has been selected to receive Gathering Waters: Wisconsin’s Alliance for Land Trusts’ Bud Jordahl Land Conservation Leadership Award for 2016.
We’re honored to have played a role in the nomination of Bill for this award. Bill spoke at the first Earth Day in 1970 and was one of the key players in our inaugural conservation success, Wally Bauman Woods, and the formation of our organization, then known as Dane County Natural Heritage Foundation. He has chaired the Dane County Parks Commission for twenty eight years, was president of Groundswell, Board Chair of The Nature Conservancy of Wisconsin, and president of the Friends of Wisconsin State Parks. He has served on the board of Gathering Waters and is serving his 15th year on the Natural Resources Foundation board. He traces this all back to his days as a law student where he was influenced by Stuart Udall and became aware of social and environmental issues.
Bill Lunney and his wife Judie Pfeifer are truly champions for the environment and local land conservation and we thank everyone who supported Bill’s nomination for this distinguished award with a letter of support: Jim Hubing; Howard Mead; R. Waldo Peterson; Gail Shea; Rick Eilertson, Friends of Capital Springs Recreation Area; Mary Jean Huston, The Nature Conservancy in Wisconsin; Laura Hicklin and Darren Marsh, Dane County Parks; and Camille Zanoni, Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. As a former winner of the same award Howard Mead said in his nomination of Bill, ” in the past 40 years, few in Wisconsin have accomplished more for the environment.. . he has been an articulate spokesman for the wise use of our natural resources in the tradition of Aldo Leopold and Bud Jordahl.”